It is known how, after a piece of clothing is bought, the help is often required of a tailor or an operator to realize adjustments and adaptations of the same with respect to the body of the buyer. For example it is frequent and common to purchase garments in clothing shops. In such cases the client can anyway ask to have adjusted some measures of the acquired garment in order to adapt it to his own body. For example it could be asked to tighten the shoulders of a jacket, or the waist of a shirt. These are some of the examples of changes that can be asked to the shopkeeper.
Moreover, it is very frequent also the case where people are absolutely out of the ordinary standard measures of industrial type clothing. In such a case, it is necessary to buy custom-made clothing which, even if sometimes of a higher cost respect to the common industrially made cloths, offer substantial comfort when worn. Moreover, adapting perfectly to the specific measures of the person, guarantees a precious aesthetic result. Such need is required also in the realization of specific sport clothing. This is for example the case of diving suits which are always more frequently custom made.
In such situations, especially in the case of custom-made clothing, it is necessary that an operator with experience, or rather a tailor, takes all the necessary measures of the person in order to be able to make the garment. It is thus a common procedure to take directly on the body of the person the measures as for example the crotch of the trousers, the circumference of the waist and of the trunk, the height of the shoulders and other specific measures of interest. All these measures allow then the tailor to make trousers, jackets and garments in general with specific wearability for the person who will wear them. Also in the case of a simple adjustment of the purchased garment it is necessary that the tailor takes such measures on the person.
In both of the above mentioned cases it is thus clear how the operation of measuring is fundamental and how the final success of the garment depends on it. Any wrong measurements can cause a final wrong realization and consequently unnecessary costs for the purchaser, other than his dissatisfaction. Moreover, in the case of custom-made garments, it is necessary to take at least some fundamental measures of the body of the person, or it will possible to fail producing a garment of proper size.
It is thus clear how such operation, if made by inexperienced or careless operators, can cause economic damages to the purchaser of the garment who will have a custom-made garment different from his size, or even not made within the pre-established time limits because of some missing measures.
Nowadays, not all the shopping centers have specialized personnel and this would cause measuring results that are completely wrong. For example the manual operation for measuring the waist is commonly made by positioning the measuring tape around the waist of the person and reading the corresponding measure. However, in the case for example of large size persons, the operation is not easy and often the operator cannot surround with the measuring tape the body of the person in a precise way, especially if the operator is small-bodied. It is then frequent that the measuring tape does not perfectly surround the waist of the client but ends up being raised or dropped from it, maybe because it is not sufficiently tight. If the operator does not have much experience it is then frequent the case where the measure is not correct, causing an inaccurate final result and clothing that have measures that are not very precise.
Moreover, also in the case of experienced operators, nowadays such operation requires some time in order to be made precisely. This implies a sacrifice to the client that has to pose for a long time in order to allow completing the measurements.
At last, the measurement of the inner part of the leg, for example for the realization or adjustment of trousers, can create discomfort to both the operator and the client.
In order to resolve the above described drawbacks, different solutions have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,052,099 in the name of W. Litton, of which are available only the drawings, clearly represents an old device that allows taking different measurements directly on the person in order to realize a clothing. The proposed solution comprises a bar 3 projecting a graduated scale and supported by a supporting base 1. Different measuring arms (7, 8, 9) are assembled in a sliding manner on the bar thanks to the help of couplings 4. In such manner, by making the arms sliding along the bar until the desired height is reached, the relative height can be read and found. In addition, a measurement strip 22 can be assembled on one of such sleeves in such a way to bring it to the desired height and read the circumference measure.
However such device is very complex and has a bulky structure with a height that equals to at least a man of an average height. This makes it non transportable and thus not very easy to handle. This means that, in case of home works, the user will be forced to not use it. Moreover the device is perfectly suited for highly specialized persons and its structural complexity is such to make the operation even more complex than a normal measurement made manually, as in the tradition. Given its dimension and its structural complications, it can just be targeted for a specialized group of people and not to a large distribution where dealers are also found of industrially made clothing.
Moreover such structural complexity makes the same extremely expensive. It is thus clear how such technical solution does not simplify the work but, in the contrary, makes it more complex requiring therefore a high competence for the use of the same.
Other patents, as for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,293 in the name of Branda et Al., describe extremely complex and bulky devices where the extraction/retraction mechanism and raising/lowering movement allow activation of the measurement systems. However such devices imply the use of electronic and mechanical parts that are complex and expensive. They are also very difficult to use, hardly transportable and do not allow fast measurements. Moreover they require a continuous maintenance of the mechanical parts that is extremely demanding.